I know I'm coming in really late on this but could someone explain this to me?Paramount bought Republic, took almost everything out of print, started Olive,licensed Republic titles to themselves (as Olive) and put them out without features for twicethe price... had WB distribute the things they took OOP, but they still licensed things to Criterion....

I'm pretty sure Olive is an independent company that just seems to have a pretty good relationship with Paramount, which doesn't seem much interested in distributing most of their own films anymore. I think someone in this thread may have said that Olive was essentially Paramount's distribution, but that was just an exaggeration. And I think Republic rights were owned by Lionsgate for a long time, but then the rights went somewhere else (to Paramount?) and Olive negotiated a deal.

From looking up Olive films on Yahoo, it seemed they were an independent company that was owned by Paramount. The Republic rights did go to Paramount (It's A Wonderful Life). I don't know what any of this means and can't understand it.If Paramount licensed things to Olive to put out expensive film only versions, why would Criterion not get things like Johnny Guitar,but get things like Harold and Maud and Rosemary's Baby, that will sell more?If it comes to money surely Criterion could afford Johnny Guitar if they can get the others?

I've never seen this officially confirmed, but it seems as though the Republic titles were an all or nothing sort of proposition (with Paramount holding on to stuff like It's A Wonderful Life for themselves), and Criterion would never/could never take on so many titles. Personally I'm just happy these titles are getting released at all: the list price is not so outrageous, and though there are some definite drawbacks to Olive's penny-pinching (no subs, spotty approach to extras), overall I'm pretty pleased, given the relative drought in official/pressed releases across the board as of late.

Agreed. Also, impatient as I am, it's really exciting to have a flood of six or ten new titles announced every month, even if that means that half of them are garbage and none of them have been treated as well as they might have elsewhere.

Interesting, thanks for the answers. And I agree that Olive is putting out things on Blu that are things I've seen on AMC in the mid '90's.It's things like "Thinner" that throw me... And that explains why they have Godard and Fassbinder titles, rather than Criterion.

By all means, China Gate is minor Fuller, but, much like Plunder Road, this is a film whose widescreen print seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

I'll leave domino to fawn over The Devil and Miss Jones (or maybe not: I think I still owe you a write-up from the 40s project), but both Ruthless and The Sun Shines Bright are two sort-of masterpieces, the latter of which I never expected to see cleaned up.